Royals, Red Sox took different paths to meet this weekend as surprise contenders
By Jon Couture,
2024-07-12
It's the pitching that makes the Royals stand out, and the Red Sox get Kansas City's best this weekend.
After Thursday night’s dominance from Tanner Houck, the Red Sox are 10 games better than .500. That first happened after Tuesday’s blowout win, but before that, we need go back to the Fourth of July, 2022.
At which point they not only lost 17 of their next 22, they lost three straight games 14-1, 13-2, and 28-5 around the All-Star break.
You ever have one of those moments where you look something up and sort of wish you hadn’t?
As I was saying! Seven wins in nine during July, best in the majors. A similarly best 19-8 since losing back-to-back games at the White Sox, the latter featuring Brayan Bello’s glove-throwing meltdown. Games which immediately followed, closing the loop, a dominant performance by Houck.
Baseball momentum. It’s a thing until it isn’t.
Which this weekend’s opponent, a team not unlike them, could quickly flip.
When the Giants came to Fenway at the beginning of May, square with the Red Sox after an offseason spending spree, it was a moment to reflect on the different paths taken by big-market teams whose surprising 2021s were followed by two .500-ish flops.
The Royals don’t share that background with their hosts this weekend, even if New England this past week felt like August in Kansas City. They were, however, one of those teams whose winter was a focus for Red Sox types unhappy with the amount of throttle applied.
San Francisco’s winter hasn’t worked, Blake Snell’s ERA lowered to 7.85 earlier this week with his first five-inning start of the year. Kansas City’s has.
Well outside the playoff picture since their World Series window closed after 2015, Kansas City lost 106 games last year. Over the winter, they splurged on free agency’s middle tier, adding Seth Lugo and former Red Sox Michael Wacha to their rotation, as well as an array of relievers (which included former Red Sox John Schreiber) and veteran hitters Adam Frazier and . . . former Red Sox Hunter Renfroe.
Expectations, given the foundation, were a run at .500 in a sleepy division. Instead, they stayed with Cleveland for six weeks atop the American League Central thanks to one of the best pitching staffs in the sport and speed. (Sound familiar?)
Third in the AL in steals, just behind Boston, only the Reds take an extra base with more frequency than the Royals do. The numbers have similarly regressed a bit, with Kansas City coming to Fenway at the end of a three-city road trip — its second in a month — two behind the Red Sox in the loss column.
The present similarities are myriad. The average age of their lineups are basically equal, each in the league’s youngest 10. KC has four All-Stars to Boston’s three. Their differing paths have led to essentially the same place.
Suffice to say, they see no reason to change their strategy.
“We’re gonna be aggressive,” Royals general manager J.J. Piccolo told MLB Network Radio regarding the trade deadline. “The thing we have to keep in mind is, I like to think that we’re just getting into a window where we’re going to have a nice handful of seasons. So how far do we want to push this thing is something that we have to answer as a front office.
“But I will say that I feel an obligation personally to the guys that committed to this team and chose Kansas City, and to the Salvador Perezes and the Bobby Witts who have chosen to be here long term to add to this club. So we will be aggressive, and we’ll look at anything and everything.”
Witt Jr., who got his Rafael Devers contract in February, is the unquestioned offensive leader — .325 average, 15 homers, 22 steals, 13 outs above average that leads MLB shortstops — if not a sleeper AL MVP candidate provided Aaron Judge ceases to be supernatural. Royals lifer Perez remains potent in the cleanup spot, with feast-or-famine Vinnie Pasquantino a threat to pepper the bullpens between them all weekend.
It’s the pitching, though, and the Red Sox get Kansas City’s best. Cole Ragans is their strikeout guy, with a dominant fastball-changeup combo that misses as many bats as anyone in the game. Brady Singer is from the Andrew Bailey school, a slider/sinker guy who peppers his infielders with ground balls and has tamed his walk rate from awful to below average.
Between them this weekend is Lugo, whose 2.21 ERA leads the majors and whose 15 quality starts (at least six innings, no more than three earned runs) is tied with Baltimore’s Corbin Burnes — and one ahead of Houck — atop the AL.
The Athletic dove earlier this week into the 34-year-old’s arsenal, which includes a fantastic curveball among, possibly,10 different pitch types. Most of which he couldn’t use much before last season in San Diego because he was exclusively a reliever for most of his career.
Everything’s relative, of course, and Kansas City’s spree still leaves their payroll south of $120 million, a third below Boston’s. The point remains each’s surprise has created possibilities where it seemed there were none. After all, 2023’s World Series opponents were both 100-loss teams in 2021, as were the Orioles.
No rest for the fringe contenders, especially not against each other.
“We talked about being greedy a few weeks ago, we saw a window [to move up] in the standings, but I think the window is getting bigger,” manager Alex Cora told reporters Tuesday night. “It’s actually a door and we can actually accomplish this. We’re going to keep looking up there and keep playing good baseball and let’s see where it takes us.
“It took us a while, but now we’ve got to go to the next step.”
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